Sunny Side Up
by Telemain's Daughter
Summary: A serial killer strikes during a spring break heat wave in NYC. When the FBI gets involved, can Beckett and the boys learn to work with Special Agent Teresa Lisbon and her unconventional partner before the killer gets away with murder? Mentastle. Caskett and Jisbon.


_A/N: I do not own the original show characters from either The Mentalist or Castle. All rights to creators, CBS and ABC._

Chapter One

Central Park, 9 am on a bright hot morning. Crowded, full of laughing couples, determined joggers, children running free and wild. More than one girl has come early to work on her tan, and the East Green is the perfect sunbathing spot. Or it would be, if not for the boys on the corner.

"Hey girl, you can go topless, fine by me."

"Yeah, baby! A little Girls Gone Wild action, that's what I'm talkin' 'bout."

"Mmm-hmm, you wanna take it off, honey, don't want no tan lines, do ya?"

"Hey!" A slim blonde in an orange suit yanked down her sunglasses. "Piss off, would you? Stop bothering her, and get lost before I call the cops, got it?"

"Bitch, we ain't doin' nothing illegal-"

She lunged off her lounge chair and the boys scattered, muttering curses. She bent over the woman next to her, the object of their unwanted attention.

"You ok, hon? They weren't getting to you, were they? Guys can be such—Miss? Miss, are you awake?"

She reached out and tugged down the woman's shades. Her eyes were wide open. The blonde drew her hand away, and the woman's head slowly lolled onto her shoulder, eyes still staring straight ahead, unseeing.

"Oh my god." The girl backed away. "Oh my god, _oh my god!_"

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"My, my, my, everybody, it is a gorgeous 82 degrees outside today, so I suggest you get out there and enjoy it, because it's only going to get hotter from here! We're looking at a significant Spring Break heat wave moving in, maybe the hottest this city has seen in a decade. We'll have projected highs and when you can expect this heat to break, tonight at 5.

"I'm Rebecca Fog, and this has been WHNY Channel 3's Weekend Weather Update."

Richard Castle clicked off the tv and settled back in his desk chair, idly spinning back and forth in the sunlight streaming through the windows.

Footsteps padded across the hardwood floor, and his wife, Kate Beckett, appeared in the doorway, two coffee cups in her hands.

His wife. It had been over a month, and he didn't think he'd ever get tired of saying or hearing those words.

"Morning, sunshine," he said, taking his coffee.

"You're up early."

"Mom and Alexis wanted to get an early start out to the Hamptons. It involved a massive amount of luggage." He set down his cup and came around the desk, pulling Kate into a hug from behind. "And since we aren't joining them until Monday, it seems to me, Mrs. Castle, that we have a whole weekend to ourselves. What do you want to do?"

"I don't know. What do you think, Mr. Beckett?"

"Hmmm..." He rested his chin on her shoulder. "Do you think we should change our names?"

She turned in his arms. "Wait, like, for real?"

"You could be Mrs. Katherine Castle."

"So you mean I could change my name. What about Mr. Richard Beckett?"

"I can't change my name. I'm a bestselling author; my name is my brand."

"Maybe we could hyphenate," she suggested thoughtfully.

"Maybe we could discuss this over waffles at our favorite diner," he said. He was leaning down to kiss her, when her phone vibrated against the desk.

It was a text from Detective Ryan: _Body in Central Park. It's a weird said to get down here._

She showed him the text. "Or we could discuss it over a dead body."

"Exciting, but less romantic."

"Oh, I don't know, Castle," she teased, walking backward toward the bedroom. "Death is what brought us together."

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Beckett strode through the crowd of onlookers, Castle close behind her.

"Hey, Ryan," she called, ducking under the yellow tape. "What have we got?"

"The victim is a white female, late twenties, early thirties. No ID." Ryan frowned and paused. "That's not the weird part."

"What is?" Castle asked.

"Come see for yourself."

Lying on a lounge chair in the bright sunshine was a pretty brunette in a yellow bikini. On the ground beside her was a straw hat and a pair of sunglasses. Dr. Lanie Parish crouched next to the chair, making notes.

Castle looked around. "I know it's warm for March, but surely it's not hot enough for her to die of heat stroke."

Ryan checked his notes. "She didn't. That's the weird part. She was posed here after she was already dead."

"That's not the only weird thing." Lanie pointed at the victim's eyes with her pen. "Do you see this? Bar keratopathy. That line across her cornea is caused by hypercalcemia."

"She died of too much calcium?" Castle asked.

"And that," Ryan put in, "is why Gates wanted you here. Does this set up look familiar?"

"A pretty girl, killed with calcium and then posed in public with her fellow sun-worshippers," Castle shook his head. "Not ringing any bells."

"Galveston," Beckett said slowly.

"What?"

"Galveston, Texas." She turned to him. "When you were missing last summer, I was reading newspapers from all over the country. There was a string of murders in Galveston, Texas, where young women were killed in some unusual way, then posed on the beach as sunbathers."

"Did they ever catch the killer?"

"No. So either we have a copycat, or the killer's moving north." She scanned the crowd, gathered close around the ring of crime scene tape in gruesome curiosity. "Ryan, any witnesses? Any _real _witnesses?"

"Javi's talking to the lady who discovered the body," he said, gesturing to the right. Detective Esposito was deep in conversation with a young blonde in an orange bikini and a skimpy gauze cover-up.

Beckett snorted. "Yeah, I bet he volunteered for that duty."

"Apparently she was very...distraught."

"Start combing through the crowd. Somebody must have seen something. Then take Esposito and canvas Fifth Avenue. Maybe we'll get lucky with a security camera."

"Um, Becket, there's one more thing-"

"Hey! Kate?" Lanie called out. "Kate, who is this man, and why is he all up in my dead body?"

Beckett swung around, her hand flying to her gun. "Sir! Sir, you need to get behind the yellow tape right now! You can't be in here."

The man straightened up. "Actually," he said, flashing her a blinding smile, "I can."

He slipped an ID card out of the vest pocket of his three piece suit. "Patrick Jane, consultant to the FBI."

"The FBI?"

Ryan stuck his head around Castle. "That was the other thing Gates wanted me to tell you."


End file.
